Study claims Internet capacity growing faster than usage

For those concerned that the Internet is running headlong into a monstrous traffic crunch, Internet monitor TeleGeography Research [1] has released a report that should give some reassurance on this front. TeleGeography notes that while Internet traffic grew 53 percent between mid-2007 and mid-2008, Internet capacity grew faster, resulting in lower utilization on many Internet backbones.

However, utilization on the international links in the United States, Canada and Latin America rose as demand for the outpaced deployment of additional Internet bandwidth. Despite this fact, the findings could halt an effort in the U.S. that has put pressure on Internet Service Providers (ISP) to stop any form of bandwidth throttling. Then again, it could be argued that the only factor preventing even faster growth in Internet usage is the use of throttling.

For more on the growth of Internet traffic:
- check out this InformationWeek article [2]